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What Are the Genuinely Useful Ideas In Programming?

Posted by Unknown on from the lattices-are-pretty-cool dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Computer Scientist Daniel Lemire has had an interesting discussion going on at his site about the ideas in software that are universally recognized as useful. 'Let me put it this way: if you were to meet a master of software programming, what are you absolutely sure he will recommend to a kid who wants to become a programmer?' Lemire's list currently includes structured programming; Unix and its corresponding philosophy; database transactions; the 'relational database;' the graphical user interface; software testing; the most basic data structures (the heap, the hash table, and trees) and a handful of basic algorithms such as quicksort; public-key encryption and cryptographic hashing; high-level programming and typing; and version control. 'Maybe you feel that functional and object-oriented programming are essential. Maybe you think that I should include complexity analysis, JavaScript, XML, or garbage collection. One can have endless debates but I am trying to narrow it down to an uncontroversial list.' Inspired by Lemire, Philip Reames has come up with his own list of 'Things every practicing software engineer should aim to know.'"

7 of 598 comments (clear)

  1. I can think of one that Steve Jobs disagreed with by Cryacin · · Score: 4, Funny

    The "on" button.

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  2. Can't Trick Me! by Erik_Kahl · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm not writing your "How to be a Programmer in 20 Minutes!" ebook for you. You'll have to spend 20 years learning like the rest of us.

  3. Re:Regular Expressions by jlar · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems."

    - Jamie Zawinski

  4. Re:After 30 years of programming by pezpunk · · Score: 5, Funny

    the WORST offenders take twice as long as their estimate? you know some pretty good programmers!

    --
    i could live a little longer in this prison
  5. Re:the absolute most useful idea.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Learn to read code, loser.

  6. Sanity by stanlyb · · Score: 4, Funny

    You would be surprised how many delusional, idiot developers are out there.

  7. Re:The Closure by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Funny

    Furthermore, if you actually put forth the time to learn lisp, two things will become immediately apparent:

    That you know both Forth and Lisp?

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell